We’re getting some hilarious comments from the 20.000+ people who have been looking at our teaser for The Path on gametrailers. com ( here and here ). There’s nice and positive comments. Even sanely critical ones. And people do seem to understand what we’re going for. But the funniest comments are, as always, the negative ones.
“Will you take the path of pins…OR NEEDLES! Lol, goths would love cutting themselves up for this game.”
“I wish the grass on the path was emo- so that it would cut itself. Lol, I’m not sure what to think. :p”
“ooo finally a game for emo and goth chicks!”
“I’m confused. What’s with the lesbians holding hands in the woods?”
“Can you say weird as something that my grandmother thought off.”
“i bet ill find this game in the value bin @ walmart next month(itll appeal to the wanna-be goth kids that think green day is sooo rad)”
“i will get it if the two girls walking down the forest get it on at some point in the game!”
I don’t know… Should our children really be looking at this? They obiously can’t handle it. ;D
[kml_flashembed movie=”http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=17870″ height=”409″ width=”480″ /]
Hahahaha. It looks like 90% of the people viewing it don’t really understand anything about the game. At all. And it’s pretty hard to get anything out of the trailer, admittedly…
…And on the other hand some people just like the score. XD
Well, the score is fabulous. Jarboe is great!
But I don’t agree that most people didn’t understand. Compared to what the teaser shows, I actually think most people understood the message: it’s a creepy game with little girls, it looks different and probably plays different as well. Half of the people like this, the other half doesn’t. Such disagreement is very encouraging!
I mean: when they say The Path is a game for emos and goths, they’re not wrong. Just like they’re not wrong when they say that The Endless Forest is a game for furries and cyberhippies. But they are missing a lot by making such blanket statements. The people who play our games know that there is a lot more to them than can fit in any of those categories.
My brain just turned itself inside it and tried to run along a corkscrew. Generally I either denounce stereotypes or try to avoid all mention of them; I’ve never thought about accepting them before.
But I guess you’re right, though I’d disagree that “emos and goths” actually exist in the real world. The Path’s for those people who embrace the darkness in life, out of intrigue, fascination or just so the light looks brighter, and so I suppose it IS for emos and goths. But what is a stereotype? It’s saying that someone who, for example, wears band shirts also does this and this and this, which is patently untrue…but isn’t it true to say that someone who wears a Greenday shirt likes Greenday and so probably also likes various other bands who play in the same genre and with the same themes as Greenday?
And there my analogy runs out of steam because I know next to nothing about Greenday. =) But I get what you’re saying.
Stereotypes and clichĂ©s make it easier for humans to understand the world and talk about it. They are mostly applied to groups of other people, not to the individual self. As long as we are aware of the fact that no single human can be defined purely by a stereotype, I think we’re fine.
Cool game đ